By Daryl Morini
Australia and five partner countries concluded their Pitch Black 2012 aerial war games last week.
The biennial Pitch Black is touted as “the largest air force training exercise in the Southern Hemisphere.” Six countries were involved this year, involving 2,200 personnel and over 94 aircraft.
Australian fighters simulated air-to-air combat tactics alongside their counterparts from Singapore, Thailand, the U.S., New Zealand and, for the first time, Indonesia.
The participation of Indonesia in this year’s exercises, with its fleet of Russian-built SU-30 Sukhoi aircraft, was a key highlight. As RAFF Captain Mike Kitcher remarked in a televised interview, this marked “the first time these aircraft have been deployed on exercise outside Indonesia and it’s certainly the first time Indonesia has deployed to Australia for an exercise on the scale of Pitch Black.”
This type of military-military diplomacy, as the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen suggested, can help to allay Australian scepticism of Indonesia’s growing military power and strategic intentions.
Read the full story at The Diplomat